Wife working for nothing basically?

slugger09

We have 3 kids, prior to the 3rd coming along she paid £20 or so per week for childcare with childcare credit covering the rest. She has recently went back to work and now pays £49 per week childcare, all well and good but she only works 16hrs per week and makes £80 odd quid a week, pays £10 for parking, and goes through £20 or so diesel a week to get there.

If she ups her hours she looses working tax and I guess child care credit and thus she'll still be working for nothing.

What is the way out of this mess? She made enquiries before going back and it worked out between housing benefit and the rest she would something like £20 working tax and £10 housing benefit a week. I earn min wage and work 40 hours. Its almost like she is working for nothing now yes but if she leaves we will be alot worse of

Cookiee

Hi Slugger09 - I think the answer is in your post TBH. If it is finanically not viable for her to go out to work then maybe it would be best to stay at home with the little ones until they go to school.
What about a home job? This would enable your OH to still earn some money, give an option to sent little ones to nursery and not worry about petrol and parking?
I hope you find a solution soon :-D

slugger09

Cookiee wrote: »

Hi Slugger09 - I think the answer is in your post TBH. If it is finanically not viable for her to go out to work then maybe it would be best to stay at home with the little ones until they go to school.
What about a home job? This would enable your OH to still earn some money, give an option to sent little ones to nursery and not worry about petrol and parking?
I hope you find a solution soon :-D

For home working all I have found has been scams or filling in surveys for pennys a week

Kimberley82

slugger09 wrote: »

For home working all I have found has been scams or filling in surveys for pennys a week

What about ironing? I have a few friends who do it and have dabbled myself good way to make some money from home.

vroombroom

I never understand why people think they are better off not working? Yes I understand you get more in benefits but think about it long term, surely being in a job you are able to get some sort of career progression therefore more earning potential?

marywooyeah

sounds like you have ended up in the benefit trap. I see from your post it does indeed sound like financially it is not "worth" her working, but as another poster says it will look better on her cv to have a good and recent work history on there.
is there a cheaper way for her to get to work? bus or car share for example? with you working 40 hours is it better for her to give up her job and you suppourt them? then when the youngest is at school maybe she could find something else then?

Oldernotwiser

slugger09 wrote: »

Its almost like she is working for nothing now yes but if she leaves we will be alot worse of

If you'd be a lot worse off if she stopped working, I can't quite see how you can say she's "working for nothing".

ETA. 16 hours on NMW is £95 pw, not "80 odd quid".

slugger09

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

If you'd be a lot worse off if she stopped working, I can't quite see how you can say she's "working for nothing".

ETA. 16 hours on NMW is £95 pw, not "80 odd quid".

Thats an odd way of looking at it but true, if she didn't work we would be alot worse of, However at the min she is working to get benefits if that makes sense, not for money.

£95pw then, it was a ball park figure.

slugger09

It all a very awkward situation, we live in the country so she does need the car to get in and out of work and the kids to school. She would need something at home online doing something or other, or a cash in hand second job somewhere but then that's a whole other kettle of fish.

UnderPressure

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

If you'd be a lot worse off if she stopped working, I can't quite see how you can say she's "working for nothing".

ETA. 16 hours on NMW is £95 pw, not "80 odd quid".

I can see your point here but even so £15 a week reward for working 16 hours is well come on now if we all start telling the truth there aren't many people here that would do it!

Even the government recognises this is a problem area that they simply do not have a solution to yet as a single parent can claim income support until the youngest child is 7, I am not well up on income support but would it be possible for a partner of a low earner to claim some?

OP would you not be better at this stage having the WTC tranferred into your name? You need to go onto one of those sites with a benefit calculator (anyone help with a link?) and play around with it to see what your best position is.

Best of luck its all well and good people saying your much better of working but when in reality you are NOT better of financially which at the end of the day is the main reason people go to work then it is incredibly difficult to see why you should bother. And so far as career progression pffffffff some on now these are minimum wage jobs lol they would have to be very very lucky to get a promotion that could be considered inline with having a career!

Best of luck OP hope you can find a better way of doing things

robpw2

UnderPressure wrote: »

I can see your point here but even so £15 a week reward for working 16 hours is well come on now if we all start telling the truth there aren't many people here that would do it!

but she doesn't get £15 a week
she gets £95 its her choice to drive a car that costs £20 to fuel ,
its her choice to pay £10 parking
its her choice to have children that need child care

she is working and she gets paid what she chooses to spend her moeny on is up to her and thats life